Image by Nina Matthews Photography

Much ado has been made recently about HR’s failure in the way the USDA handled an employee relations situation involving Shirley Sherrod.

If you’re not familiar with the case yet, here’s a great run-down from Frank Roche at Know HR.

Let’s say you’re in human resources at the USDA. And by hook or by crook you end up hearing a sound bite from a speech that one of your most senior employees gave in March, in which, if you only listened to the few seconds of the clip, make it appear that she discriminated against a farmer because of his race.

What do you do?

1. Recommend that she be fired immediately without reviewing all the facts?
2. Talk to her and ask her about the totality of her comments?
3. Wilt like a pansy in the Georgia heat because some questionable media types said you should fire her? So you do?

Shirley Sherrod got fired. Then, when the facts became clear, she got an apology. Sorta kinda.

(Click here to read Frank’s whole post.)

So the HR interwebz is blowing up around the case, talking about how HR pros at the USDA should have been more involved and that they failed massively.

HR’s point of failure, though, happened long before this case.

Keep reading…

In response to my recent post on doing less, Rebecca Thorman from Modite commented on the importance of, “making sure everything on your plate has meaning.”

I talk a lot about providing employees with meaningful and engaging work. That said, I think meaning is overrated. Here’s my response:

Keep reading…

Image by Ricardo Villela

I had a really interesting discussion the other day about whether or not work should be fun.

The resounding opinion was that work isn’t fun – it’s satisfying. Doing challenging things. Helping others. Doing work that’s well aligned with someone’s passions and strengths.

Fun, people felt, comes from the relationships with their coworkers. From the work environment. From the culture.

Satisfying work. Fun culture.

What do you think?

I can’t say it any better than Tom Peters. Take three minutes to watch this video – it’s worth it.

You spend a lot of time getting people excited to come work for you during the recruiting process. Then you put them through an orientation program, get them setup at their work-station and introduce them their team. Sign them up for benefits.

What happens a month after you bring a new hire onboard? What about three months after?

Do you check-in to see how they’re doing? Whether or not the organization is living up to their expectations?

If not, you should be.

A few weeks ago I was chatting with a senior director of HR, and he shared the following nugget of wisdom:

You can have the best HR practices, programs and processes in the world, but if people aren’t happy with the work they’re doing and the manager they work for, it doesn’t matter.

Where are you spending most of your time: On the nice-to-have stuff, or the need-to-have stuff?

Some random ideas and beliefs I have about human resources:

1. People have a life outside of work – and it makes them better employees.
2. Policies shouldn’t cater to the lowest common denominator (example: corporate dress codes).
3. The best performers don’t always make the best managers (in fact, they usually don’t).
4. A lot of the things HR does are things managers should be doing (and good managers already do).
5. Performance appraisals don’t work. Regular, ongoing feedback does.
6. People do better work when they feel it’s meaningful and provides some sort of challenge.
7. That applies to jobs like assembly lines and janitorial roles, too (not just knowledge workers).
8. More jobs than most managers are willing to admit can be done from places other than the office.
9. In fact, for many jobs, an office is actually the least ideal place to get great work done.
10. Strong relationships between team members produce better results.
11. When you speak/write in HRese, people don’t understand you or trust what you say.
12. The best HR pros interact with their employees every day.
13. If you treat employees like children, that’s how they’ll act.
14. If you treat employees like adults, that’s how they’ll act.
15. Great interviewers don’t necessarily do great work (and vice-versa).
16. The best recruiters communicate with candidates openly and often (whether or not there’s news to share).
17. The best recruiters build a pipeline of candidates – before they have a job opening.
18. Just because someone did something well at one organization doesn’t mean they’ll do it well at yours. The circumstances are different.
19. Curiosity and drive are more important than experience.
20. Social media is not a fad.
21. Great HR is about getting out of the way (and letting people do amazing things).

Any you’d add to the list? Disagree with? How do these ideas change the way we think about and practice HR now?